


To The Sea

by murron



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Established Relationship, M/M, Prompt Fic, Season/Series 05, Team Free Will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-31
Updated: 2011-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-19 23:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murron/pseuds/murron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fighting a losing battle against the Croatoan virus, Sam, Dean and Cas take a break at the seaside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To The Sea

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers: up to 5.22  
> standard disclaimers apply
> 
> a/n: Written for the spn_foxhole Team Free Will Free-for-all Fic and Art Fest. Prompt at the end of the fic.

**_January 3 rd, 2011_** – _Check-in Jake Foreman. Séance unsuccessful, cherub could not be summoned. Second psychic to confirm the angels are gone.  
No contact with Tulsa since quake. Have to assume croats took over the Oklahoma sanctuary._

 _  
Lost  
Hank Gardiner – killed Dec 30th, 2010  
Lindsey Hopkins – killed Dec 30th 2010  
Parker Ellis – killed Jan 1st, 2011  
_   
_Anne Callahan – MIA  
Rufus Turner – MIA_

 __

 _~ Journal of Bobby Singer, La Pine, OR_

 

 

 _~_

 

Two minutes after midnight and not a single car on the highway. A year ago, Sam would have been surprised. The Impala’s headlights hit the road as the car rolled west on Highway 101. Sitting behind the wheel, Sam had his window rolled down and the radio playing at low volume. Most of the noise was static but they’d catch a few scraps of news when they came in range of a station that was still broadcasting. Sometimes the static even switched to music, a sudden song ghosting into the silence and leaving Sam with goose-bumps all over. He almost preferred the quiet these days.

Dean had dozed off in the passenger seat, his arms folded over his chest. In the feeble light from the dash, Sam sought out his brother’s face, took in the shadows that hollowed his cheeks. Dean had lost weight and, when he was at rest, it showed. His clothes hung off him and the skin seemed thinner, tauter on his cheeks. He looked about as burned out as Sam felt. _Team Worse for Wear_ , Sam thought and checked on Cas, who snored softly in the back. 

Exit signs kept slipping by and Sam counted them, hoping they’d soon pass out of Los Angeles’ radius. Croats had overrun the city three months ago. If Sam’s intel was sound, the virus had spread to all urban areas except for a few cities in the north. That’s were Sam, Dean and Cas were headed. Bobby already waited for them in some kind of fort up in Oregon, where he gathered as many hunters as possible. Sam only hoped Bobby had drilled his recruits; otherwise Sam’s stay at the fort would be short and fatal. Too many hunters were gunning for his head. Lucifer’s vessel. The boy who kick-started the apocalypse. He didn’t get many Christmas cards.

Another roadsign, announcing 400 miles to San Francisco. One more hot zone on their map. Sam rubbed his eyes and wished he had some coffee left.

The night was warm enough for early spring with dry winds curling past the window. Sam breathed-in the ghost of oleander and sea foam and thought of the Pacific, dark waves licking at a bone-white shore. The Impala ate the miles, leaving Saratoga Hills behind as the highway angled toward the coast. They were coming toward another junction when Sam saw a huge billboard advertising good times for young and old “on the friendliest beach this side of the Pacific”. A googly-eyed octopus squiggeled his arms next to the caption.

Sam slowed the Impala, eyes slipping over the dark hills to his left. He kept thinking of the ocean, remembering the blue fusion of sea and sky which he hadn’t seen since Jess died.

When the exit came up, Sam turned the Impala off the highway and followed another tourist sign with the same octopus, its tentacle pointing seawards.

 

~

 

The octopus trail led Sam to a remote beach ten miles from a trailer park. The road ended in a huge parking lot which suggested that the place had been well frequented at a time. Now the Impala was the only car, her tires crunching over cracked blacktop and sand.

A square building stood at the far side of the parking lot, a diner or café. Sam drove the Impala right up to the house and stopped. The sounds of the engine faded to a faint clicking and Sam could hear, first the wind going through the grass on the dunes, then the sea, drumming a hollow beat down at the shore. He closed his eyes, smelled oleander again and, this time, salt.

 

~

 

“Come on, this is a bad idea,” Dean grumbled, half-in and half-out of the car with his feet on the parking lot. “We need to get to Bobby.”

“Yeah but we won’t get there tonight,” Sam said and opened the Impala’s backdoor. Cas handed him two of their sleeping bags, then climbed out with a third tucked under his arm.

Getting up, Dean shot another look back at the road so Sam slapped his sleeping bag against Dean’s chest.

“We’re all too whacked to drive, so shut up and get some rest.”

Before Dean could protest, Cas moved up to him and said, “Come on.”

He grabbed Dean by the back of his collar and herded him toward the building like a cat dragging her kitten. Sam chuckled, snatched the bag that held their food from the backseat and closed the Impala’s doors.

By the time he caught up with Dean and Cas, they had already cracked the café’s door. Sam stepped in and saw the light of Dean’s Maglite skitter over a spacey dining area, a postcard rack, a bar and deli. The blinds were down and the chairs stacked by the windows.

They rolled out their sleeping bags on the floor and the moment Sam sat down, exhaustion settled in his bones like lead. He took off his shoes and overshirt, feeling like he could sleep for a week. Crawling into his sleeping bag, he bunched up his shirt for a pillow and shot another look at Dean and Cas. The two of them had already settled down, with Cas on his side and Dean right at his back. They didn’t spoon, not exactly, but they didn’t leave much space between them either. Cas was only an arms length away from Sam, too, so that was alright.

Motel rooms, floors in run-down houses, leaky sheds: No matter where they made camp, the three of them always gravitated toward each other. They never talked about it, but by now Sam had a hard time falling asleep if Dean and Cas weren’t close enough to touch.

Pulling the flap of his sleeping bag over his shoulder, Sam rolled over and drifted off to the sound of the waves slapping on the beach.

 

~

 

They slept until noon and with the day already half gone decided to stay on a bit longer. Leaving their gear in the diner Sam, Dean and Cas headed down to the sea, using a wooden stairway that descended from the diner’s sun deck.

Sam slipped off his shoes and socks as soon as he stepped on the beach, toes curling in the clammy sand. He looked up at the surf, at the spots of sunlight flickering on the waves and his chest felt tight, like a hand had closed around his heart and squeezed.

They walked all the way to the waters’ edge, the wind blowing harder as they crossed the shore. The ocean roared and gulls bopped under the overcast sky. Hands in the pockets of his jeans, Dean frowned at the sea-foam curling at the tip of his boots. His nose was already flushed red with the cold.

Sam grinned. “You backing down?”

“In your dreams,” Dean grumbled, but his mouth twitched too, dimples showing.

“What are you talking about?” Cas asked and Dean chuckled.

“Yeah, you know all those years we were tramping around with our Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Well, we didn’t get to the sea much. Critters don’t like it I guess. So Sammy and I made a pact.” Dean laughed. “Spit on it and everything.”

“We said we’d go for a swim whenever we stopped at a beach,” Sam explained. “No matter what time of day or year.”

“Swim,” Cas repeated and turned a thoughtful gaze at the heaving ocean.

“Yep,” Dean agreed. “So strip, dude, ‘cause you’re coming too.”

Cas watched Dean as he shrugged off his jacket, frowning like he suspected Dean was pulling his leg. He threw a look at Sam and Sam shrugged, signaled _, yeah, no kidding this time_ , before he slipped off his watch. Cas unbuttoned his coat, hesitated.

“Should I take off everything?” he asked and Dean cocked his head.

“Unless you got a red bathing suit tucked away somewhere—”

“Just keep on your underwear,” Sam said and unbuckled his belt. He stepped on ground up shells and felt the tiny shards crack under his heels.

“It’s going to be dick-shrinking cold,” Dean prophesized even as he skinned out of his shirts.

“Wuss,” Sam teased, his toes already numb from the wet sand. They took off everything, jeans and t-shirts, guns and knives. When Cas peeled his sweater off over his head his tattoos showed, drawing Sam’s eyes like they always did.

They hadn’t thought to carve Cas’s ribs with Enochian sigils in time so they inked him after he demojoed. His shoulders, upper arms and chest were covered with close-writ Enochian scripture and other warding symbols, a poor ersatz magic compared to the power Cas had once carried under his skin. As Cas pushed down his pants, Sam caught Dean watching him, his face a mix of helplessness and worry all wrapped into one.

Sometimes Sam thought Cas’s fall hit Dean harder than Cas but that was bullshit. It was just that Sam knew Dean’s tells by heart and Cas still puzzled him. He didn’t always catch the cracks in Cas’s armor.

He remembered sparring with Cas in the early days, how Cas had gone down on the mat sweating and exhausted, failing to avoid one of Sam’s shoulder throws. Sam had told him to take it easy, take a break, but Cas had just pushed back to his feet and said, _again_.

Turned out Cas had a stubborn streak worthy of a Winchester and Winchesters never backed down. They defied heaven, hell, and hypothermia.

Dropping his clothes away from the waterline, Sam walked in first and yes, his balls wanted to crawl up into his body the second the icy water hit his thighs. Sam marched on with gritted teeth hearing Dean yell and bitch behind him. As soon as the tide closed around his waist, Sam pushed off for a long slide and crawled out into the waves.

 

~

 

They swam with shivering muscles and goosepimpled skin but Sam enjoyed the shock of the cold. He felt like the freezing water washed layers of road-dust and sorrow off his back. After a while he noticed Dean and Cas were gone but paid no mind to their retreat. He continued his laps, cutting through the heaping waves until he thought about nothing but the rushing of the sea.

 

~

 

As he followed a boardwalk back to the diner’s stairway, Sam came across a water tap and a lost sandal, half buried in the sand. Holding his feet under the running water, he sluiced off the silt between his toes. He slipped on his sneakers without socks and climbed the stairs, the ocean booming at his back.

When he’d come out of the water, he’d been warm, his body fired up by the swim but the seawind sucked the heat quickly from his skin. Crossing the deck, Sam hoped Dean had started some coffee because he would not hit the road without a dose of caffeine. Caffeine and a nap, even, although maybe not in that order. Sam pushed his hands into the pouch of his hoodie and smiled. What the hell. He was going to slip back into his sleeping bag and kick back for another hour. He’d already opened the diner’s door and crossed the stoop when he heard a moan and a half-growled ‘ _Dean’_ from inside.

Sam froze, heard, “Cas, please,” and, “Fuck yeah.”

Cheeks flaming, Sam backed out and closed the door. So much for coffee. He looked at the sky’s reflection in the diners’ windows and sighed.

Sometimes he really missed Cas’s tie.

 

~

 

Knees against the dash, Sam sat in the shotgun seat of the Impala with a book on his thighs. He’d opened the car-door and pulled a knitted hat down over his ears, listening to the rolling sea as he turned the pages.

After they couldn’t stop the first wave of Croats, and the second, he’d made a promise to himself to read as many world classics as possible before the lights went out. He gave in at _Ulysses_ and reverted to his favorites, reading only what he enjoyed.

 _New moon to half moon, the sea voyage was a time of peace for him. The grey kitten was a hardy traveler, busy mousing the ship all day faithfully curling up under his chin or within hand’s reach at night; and to his unceasing wonder, that little scrap of warm life kept him from the wall of stones and the voices calling him across it. Not so that he entirely forgot them. They were there, just through the veil of sleep in darkness, just through the brightness of the day. Sleeping out on deck those warm nights, he opened his eyes often to see that the stars moved, swinging to the rocking of the moored ship, following their courses through heaven to the west. He was still a haunted man._

 

~

 

Sam was well into the fourth chapter when he heard footsteps on the parking lot. Looking up, he saw Cas heading for the Impala with a steaming mug in his hand. Sam earmarked his page and waited until Cas reached the car.

“Here,” Cas said and passed down the coffee.

Sam smiled and closed his hands around the mug. “Thanks, Cas.”

Cas smiled back, hunching his shoulders against the wind. The first sip was awesome, black coffee filling Sam’s mouth, bitter and strong.

“Are you hungry?” Cas asked. “Dean is making sandwiches.”

Sam swallowed another mouthful of coffee, loving how it warmed him right down to his toes. “Good, I could eat a horse.”

“I thought so,” Cas said and pulled a Snickers bar from his pocket, surprising a grin out of Sam.

“Aw, man, you’re a lifesaver.”

Sam tossed his book on the back-seat, got out of the car and took the candy. He pulled off the wrapper and his belly grumbled at the first waft of peanuts and caramel. He hadn’t had much of an appetite these last few weeks but now he was starving, craving the taste of chocolate so much his mouth watered.

He finished off the chocolate in two bites and Cas side-eyed him with amusement as they headed back to the diner.

 

~

 

Late afternoon the three of them returned to the beach and lit a fire out of driftwood, sharing a dinner of Ramen noodles and cheese sandwiches. The sun set behind a patchwork pattern of clouds, painting the sky orange and faded pink.

Sam sat on one side of the fire, Dean on the other. Between them, the bleached wood cracked and splintered, flames twitching and fluttering. Cas puttered about, then poured himself another mug of soup before he settled down behind Dean. He wrapped an arm around Dean’s chest and miracle of miracles, Dean let him. Sam’s brother kept a carefully neutral face but he leaned back into the vee of Cas’s thighs, arms crossed and hands stuffed under his jacket.

Sam had asked Cas once how he managed with Dean’s trust issues, his refusal to believe that anyone would choose to be around him. Sam had been joking, or half-joking, but Cas had answered earnestly, _one day at a time._

Scraping noodles off the bottom of his mug, Sam finished his soup and tossed another log into the fire.

The wind had calmed down some and the waves smoothed out to a ripple. Looking at the sloshing tide, Sam wondered if the virus had made it across the Pacific. He had no way to tell, with the internet down and no more flights going from or reaching the U.S. At least, Sam never saw any jet trails anymore.

He’d had a pen-pal in France once, Julie. She’d wanted to become a veterinarian when she grew up and had sent Sam a picture of her cat. He’d sent her a picture of Dean sleeping in the Impala, telling Julie his brother needed as much maintenance as a year-old Labrador (who had just discovered girl-dogs). He wondered where Julie was now, if she prescribed antibiotics for hamsters, or if she’d been torn apart by croats before she even knew what happened.

The memories of the towns Sam’s been in after the Croats had ploughed through was never far. Sometimes he put a wall between the images of piled and dismembered bodies that flash in his head like snapshots, but he never forgot, and the knowledge that they were driving through a dead country always crept up on him.

Shivering, Sam folded his arms on his knees. Suddenly the ocean seemed very big and very empty.

“Hey, Sasquatch,” Dean said and the fake-innocence in his voice made Sam tense up. “How about some campfire songs?”

“Shut up.”

“You can sing?” Cas asked and Dean grinned.

“I don’t know about ‘can’,” he said, “but in 7th grade he joined the school choir to impress his girlfriend.”

 _Yeah,_ Sam thought, _at a time when my voice broke in every sentence. The memory still made him cringe._

“Say, Dean,” he shot back. “Why don’t we talk about the time you bleached your hair for Amy MacKenzie?”

“That’s in no way relevant.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think you’d look cute as a blonde,” Cas offered.

“ _Cute?_ ”

“Wanna try it out?” Sam asked Cas and Dean ducked his head.

“Touch my shampoo and die.”

Cas grinned and tugged at Dean’s hair until Dean swatted his hand away. Crossing his feet at the ankles, Dean cupped Cas’s knee in his palm and smiled at Sam. Over the last years, Dean’s face had changed, there were more lines, more scruff, but his smile still reached his eyes.

Dean looked at Sam like he knew exactly what Sam had been thinking and Dean’s attention went a long way to chasing off the loneliness that wanted to clamp around Sam’s bones. Just like when they were kids. Sam remembered nights when he’d been scared stiff, staring at their Dad as he drove the Impala to another hunt, and Dean would wink at him across the backseat, promise him without words that everything would be okay.

Sam at twenty-eight had seen too much to be soothed. He’d watched the shit hit the fan too many times, but to his surprise, something inside him believed Dean’s smile. Sam swallowed the last of his soup and marveled at the glimmer of hope that hadn’t disappeared yet.

One of the logs cracked and tumbled out of the fire, so Dean nudged it back with his boot. They sat on the beach until the fire burned down and the stars came out.

 

~

 

Dean woke them up at five in the morning, dished out a quick breakfast of, surprise, noodle soup, and shooed them out of the diner.

The seagulls in the parking lot took off as one when Sam, Dean and Cas walked to the Impala. Cas stowed their bed-rolls and plastic bag of supplies in the trunk and Dean muttered about the fine coat of sand on the car’s varnish. Shoving the case that held their camping stove under the front-seat, Sam made a mental note of plundering the next outdoor store for propane.

“I can do the first leg,” Cas said and Sam tossed him the keys.

“Shotgun,” Sam said. He held up his fist for rock, paper, scissors but Dean only huffed and waved him off. Cas slid behind the wheel, Sam flopped down next to him and Dean stretched out in back with his legs on the seat.

“You have to give me directions,” Cas said as he started the car.

“Just follow the octopus,” Sam replied and pulled his paperback from the glovebox. 

Looking into the rearview mirror, he caught Dean staring at what had to be Cas’s hands on the wheel. Sam rolled his eyes and Dean, noticing, winked at him.

“How far?” Dean asked.

“860 miles,” Sam said. “Give or take.”

“Wake me when it’s my turn.”

Cas steered the Impala in a curve and out of the parking lot, heading for the exit and the billboard that said _Come Again Soon_ with the octopus waving a tissue. As the car rolled down the road, Sam kept his eyes on the sideview-mirror, watching the gulls swoop down on the parking lot as the Impala drove away.

 

 _fin_  
___________  
31/05/11

Beta by **auburnnothenna** & **eretria**

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Book excerpt from Ursula LeGuin’s _The Other Wind_
> 
> Written in answer to immortal_jedi’s prompt:  
>  _S5 Sam, Dean, and Castiel are fighting a losing battle. Heaven and Hell are after them, Hunters won't help them (and some of them keep trying to kill Sam...) and Castiel is losing his powers. They need a chance to stop thinking about it. Luckily, they just so happen to be near the beach. Sam and Dean have to explain swim wear to their clueless angel friend._


End file.
